Switching from Bloglines to Newsgator

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve been a Bloglines user for over a year now and have been mostly happy with them outside of a few small details. The layout could be better, some feeds wont import, way it handles feeds that update articles and clicking on the feed marks the all as read are probably my biggest peeves. I’ve tried standalone RSS readers but always went back to Bloglines. It was nice to have all my feeds marked as read no matter where i checked it. From my Mac, XP, cell phone, work, or home, I would never read the same article twice. It was perfect. Firefox extensions, Dashboard widgets would always keep me notified.

With my recent switch to Mac OS X, alot of the way i was used to computing has changed. I’ve completely eliminated my Windows XP desktop and my laptop is on its way out, so i don’t boot it up very often, so 98% of everything i do is now on my Mac. With this, I’ve been introduced to alot of new software. One has been NetNewsWire. I’ve tried it before as I give just about every peice of software recommended to me its 15secs of fame on my desktop. As with all other desktop RSS readers, everything is local and not
sync’d between multipy computers. With the latest NetNewsWire 2.1 beta, it added Newsgator syncing. I’ve never used Newsgator before but with the signup being free, what the hell. Installed NetNewsWire Lite 2.1 beta and signed up to Newsgator.

Like most people, change is hard. Even tho I welcome trying new ways, its hard to break old habits. One way I deal with this when using something new on the computer is to delete everything that has to do with the way I’ve been doing it. In my case here I deleted all my Bloglines bookmarks, bookmarklets and uninstalled all widgets and Firefox extensions. This way I can’t go back and if i want to do something, I’ll need to learn the new way like it or not. So I’ve been using it for a few days now and I’m still getting
used to using a desktop reader instead of a web reader. So far:

Pro’s

• See the actually unread count in my Dock
• Dont have to have my Web browser open
• Newsgator’s web layout is beautiful
• Feeds arent marked as read if i click on the feed
• Saves old articles like email
• Deals with updated feeds
• Free version of NetNewsWire

Cons:

• No Firefox extension
• Need to pay for the mobile version
• No free Windows client